


Send in the Clowns

by disappearingcheshire



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Beyond, DCU (Animated)
Genre: Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker - Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Minor Violence, Trope Bingo Round 4, i have no idea what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disappearingcheshire/pseuds/disappearingcheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sometimes, his laughter catches in his throat.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Wherein Tim Drake remains on as Robin after the Joker tortures him and finds his lines blurred in the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send in the Clowns

**Author's Note:**

> another bingo fill! this time for 'mind control'  
> set in some sort of frankensteined 'return of the joker' verse //sweats
> 
> also @ [dw](https://disappearingcheshire.dreamwidth.org/6826.html)

The scars are what most people notice first.  
  
Some try not to comment, even as they hesitate and falter, their eyes settling everywhere but on the welted grin that stretches out from the corners of Tim's mouth.   
  
Others are more apparent, staring heavily at the way the skin bunches as he talks, their eyes following his scars as they shift with the shape of his words.  
  
They ask him  _how_  and  _when_ , prodding politely for the details of his trauma: their curiosity bloodless yet well intended.  
  
' _Does it hurt_ ,' someone inevitably wonders.   
  
“No,” Tim always smiles, his cheek tightening with a faint spasm of ruined muscle.  
  
It's the closest thing to humor he'll ever allow himself.  
  
  
–  
  
In the months following his return home, when the bleached smell of hospitals is still a comfort, Tim tries not to look at himself.  
  
He has the mirrors removed from his room, from his bathroom, and asks that the others be covered. Jack Drake complies, unable to deny the stricken gaze of his son, and plunges the house into a state of mourning.   
  
–  
  
It was worse in the beginning, when the healing was still fresh and the tissue still raw. In those first few years, the marks had been the focal point of his face - thick half moons curled aggressively into his cheeks - and even the barest regard would set off another panic attack.  
  
He's better about it now.   
  
His therapist would probably say it was the time, the distance, that's made the intrusions easier to handle.  
  
(Tim would probably ask for who.)  
  
–  
  
  
Although he doesn't need them anymore, Tim still keeps the bandages on his face, only removing them long enough to apply new ones, and ignores the concerned notch in Barbara's brow whenever she visits.   
  
–  
  
“Tim,” Jack begins one day, his voice firm but gentle. They're sitting side by side on Tim's bed, the air thick and awkward between them.   
  
The younger boy tenses, his shoulders rigid, and lowers his gaze in apprehension.  
  
On his cheek, the gauze pads are hot and itchy.  
  
“The doctors say the physical portion of your recovery is finished.”  
  
Tim shrugs and tucks his arms across his chest, hunching protectively into himself. Dully, he watches his toes flex against the carpet weave.   
  
Jack clears his throat, reaching out tentatively to drop a hand on Tim's shoulder. When he speaks, his voice is weighted in regret and clumsy with assurance. “There are specialists we can hire, if you'd like. Cosmetic surgeons-”  
  
Anger bubbles in Tim's chest, corrosive like bile, and shame becomes an ugly twist in his stomach. He nods, fisting the material of his pajamas, but can't make himself look at his parent. Instead, he keeps his head down, allowing the curtain of his hair to keep his face from view.  
  
The hand on his shoulder squeezes, Jack's sigh nearly inaudible. “Think about it, alright?”   
  
His bed shifts as the elder removes himself from it, but Tim keeps still.  
  
He doesn't move again until long after the click of door tells him he's alone, until the sun is going down through the window and his thoughts have circled his brain enough to harden themselves into resolve.  
  
Slowly, Tim stands, his mouth pressed tight in determination as he creeps towards his dresser. His hand hovers near the top drawer, his pulse violent, before he finally finds the nerve to pull it open and reach inside.  
  
The compact is smooth and light, stolen from Barbara’s purse during one of her visits.   
  
He peels off his gauze with trembling fingers, the flesh beneath prickling when exposed to open air, and clicks open the powder box.   
  
The face that greets him has become vaguely familiar.  
  
It's not as bad as he thought it'd be, the scars are a deep pink and almost neatly laid into his cheeks. They're healed more than the first time he'd look, and the second, but as it had both times before, his vision spots, and the sensations overwhelm him.   
  
For a horrible moment, its as if the knife is there again, burning through muscle, gagging him on the taste of his own blood.  
  
His throat tightens, and the knot in his chest expands, building pressure in his diaphragm. He grips the dresser's edge, shoulders trembling with the onslaught of emotion, the burning in his lungs a precursor to hysteria.  
  
Tim squeezes his eyes shut, his mouth wide, and laughs.  
  
–  
  
  
It takes him a long time to convince Bruce to let him come back.  
  
  
–  
  
Puberty hits Tim with unexpected force.   
  
It makes him confrontational, angry. His moods cycle quickly, flipping him from one spectrum to the next in a manner of minutes. The chaos wrecked on his body's chemistry by the Joker's serums provide a volatile base for his hormones, and together their explosion is beyond his control.  
  
He finds himself lashing out at those around him, cutting into his relationships with the sharp barb of his tongue. Worse, there's a matching numbness that grows in his chest, an odd detachment as if his wires have been cut, so that even as his social life slips away from him, so too does his capacity to care.  
  
  
–  
  
Over time, the nightmares become routine.  
  
–  
  
  
More and more, Tim finds himself confronting Bruce. Words leave before he can stop them, cold taunts that stiffen broad shoulders and draw ire over his mentor's brow.   
  
The friction only seems to fuel Tim, his cheek muscles jerking as he grins without humor, until suddenly they're fighting. He realizes some part of him is anticipating this, is eager for it, even as panic closes his throat and his stomach sours with the fear of disappointing Bruce, of letting him down and not being the Robin he needs.   
  
His throws failure after failure at the Dark Knight's feet, nearly spitting his ridicule, and doesn't stop until Bruce storms from the area.  
  
Sometimes, it seems, Tim just can't help himself.   
  
–  
  
Tim worries that Bruce will change his mind and take Robin away again.  
  
He knows he's become unpredictable, a liability, and that there isn't room in the Batman's plans for uncontrolled variables.  
  
The worry keeps him up at night, when the terrors aren't already, as he tries to figure out just how it'll happen.  
  
  
–  
  
  
Every now and then, Tim ends up in the old factory district.   
  
He finds himself walking the length of it, strolling through the shadows and the trash. The buildings are empty, void of the life that once sustained them, their bodies obscured in graffiti.   
  
He's not sure why it comforts him or what draws him to the dilapidated wharf.   
  
He's not even sure how he gets there.   
  
–  
  
It hits him suddenly, as he sits behind the computer in the Batcave. Beside him, Alfred provides information on the latest case, speaking into the comm as Bruce closes in on the evening's target.  
  
He thinks back to all the other patrols he hasn't been on, to the cases he's been assigned that are merely research, and wonders if he was ever really Robin at all.   
  
  
–  
  
Sometimes, his laughter catches in his throat. It catches and catches like an old film reel, tripping from his lips until he can't stop the torrent.   
  
“Shut up,” the Red Hood hisses, his expression angry and frantic and fifteen years old. “ _Shut the fuck up_.”  
  
Tim hunches over, holding onto his sore gut as the howling mirth continues, skipping and jagged. His face spasms grotesquely, muscles set off by the strain, and his eyes water.  
  
He's still laughing when Jason hits him, is forced to gurgle his amusement around the blood filling his mouth, and only stops long enough to spit his teeth onto the concrete.  
  
–  
  
“I'm sorry,” Tim says into the night, a short while later, when at last he can catch his breath.   
  
Jason is long gone.   
  
As he stares up from the flat of his back, the rooftop cold against his shoulders, the grin lingers on his face. He's sore all over, his pulse a steady gallop in the locked up tendons of his jaw and cheek as they twitch.  
  
Grin lingering, faint and aching, his body trembles with fatigue. Almost numbly, a final beat of laughter builds in his throat, his lips parting to release it.  
  
Instead, Tim rolls onto his side, his knees pulled to his chest, and sobs.   
  
–  
  
Three figures walk into an old asylum.   
  
Only one walks out. 


End file.
